Bedtime Stories
by CarsAndTelephones
Summary: Stranded on a foreign planet and waiting for an imminent attack, Kirk tells a child tales of the Enterprise to help her feel brave.
1. Introduction

_Author's Note—I rediscovered this story lurking in a lost folder recently and I thought I'd clean it up a bit and give it a go at publishing. This'll be in three or four parts—not sure how I want to divide it yet. At any rate—please leave a review if you liked it, or even if you didn't like it, I'd just love to hear from you as long as you're constructive!_

_Disclaimer: Don't own Star Trek, or any of its characters :)_

**Bedtime Stories**

Kirk hated the waiting.

The only metaphor, overused though it was, that occurred to him was that it was like the calm before the storm. It would come and come inevitably, but waiting for it in the horrible stillness was the worst of all. The fear in the air around him was palpable. He saw a mother holding her child close to her, trying valiantly not to show the worry in her face as she stroked the boy's smooth blonde hair. A girl clutched her friend's hand so tightly that her knuckles shown white. A man with a graying beard and a scar across his face did nothing to hide the tears that streamed silently down his face. And above it all was a pervasive silence that no one—not even the smallest child—broke.

_How many of these people will die?_ Kirk asked himself, surveying the faces, _how many will I not be able to save?_

He had prepared for the coming battle as best as he knew how, employing full use of his considerable tactical ingenuity, but the truth was that they were trapped and the only thing for it was to wait for attack to come and simply _hope_ for the best and _hope_ that his plan would work.

Unfortunately hoping did not save lives.

He sat on the bottom stair of the fortress carved in the rock deep in the caves, his elbows propped on his knees but his head held high. He would not drop his face into his hands no matter how much he wanted to; he was a leader and he would not show weakness when so many depended upon him for guidance. But could they depend upon him? Despite his outward appearance, he had second-guessed himself over and over in the last half-hour and a paralyzing fear had worked its way deep into his gut and couldn't be removed. His mind raced. He went over everything again and again—how they had come down to the surface to help the colonists in the midst of a bloody attack by their planetary rivals, the Amirites, how the Amirites had proved stronger and smarter than they had first appeared by driving the colonists into the cave before all of them could be transported out to the Enterprise and by dividing and scattering the rest of them despite Kirk and his small away team's attempts to keep them together. Kirk's group were the only people left as far as he knew; he had lost contact with the rest of them hours ago and he knew it was too much to hope that any of them had survived.

He let the air hiss through his teeth in fury as he remembered the screams and cries of the massacred colonists he'd heard their last moments over the faulty connection of the communicator. The Amirites had apparently spared no one, man, woman, or child.

_Bastards,_ he thought bitterly to himself,_ fucking sick bastards._

But his thoughts were interrupted when a small red ball caught his eye as it rolled across the rough stone to come to a rest at his feet. He stared at it momentarily and retrieved it from the floor, tossing it deftly between his hands and looking around for where it had come from. The answer was short in coming: a little girl with brown pigtails approached him, her eyes wide as if in wonder at her daring, her empty arms outstretched a little in hesitant expectancy. He held the ball out to her as she approached and she shyly snatched it from his hand. She couldn't have been more than seven years old, Kirk thought with a pang. God, she was so little.

"Thank you, sir," she whispered in wonder backing away, her wide green eyes round as cherry tomatoes as she clutched the ball in her tiny hands. Kirk flashed her a grin. "Sure, no problem, kid," he said.

She blushed and smiled and turned to go back to whom Kirk presumed was her father sleeping against the cold stone wall across the enclosure. But as she made to step forward, she hesitated and peeked back at Kirk through her lashes. Seeing he was still watching, she looked away quickly, but after a moment seemed to think better of it and turned around timidly to approach him once more.

Kirk waited patiently, faintly amused. She stared at him with her huge innocent eyes and whispered something so quietly that Kirk could only see her lips move.

He leaned forward a little more, giving her a reassuring smile. "Sorry, kid I didn't catch that."

She tripped forward a few steps and said in a tiny voice, "Are we gonna be okay?"

Kirk's light amusement shattered. Her words made Kirk's chest contract so much so that he found it hard to breathe for a second. What could he tell her? That it was all going to be fine? That he could promise that she and her dad would make it out alive? That he would _try_ to save her? That seemed so far from adequate that he felt dirty even thinking it. He wanted to reassure her but somehow he couldn't bring himself to lie to this child with eyes that bored into his in a way that made him feel like she could see right through him. He struggled on the edge of speech, searching for words that would comfort her, but he could find nothing.

"I don't know, kid," he rasped after a second, unable to speak properly against the lump in his throat. "I don't know."

She stared at him, her eyes lamp-like in the semi-darkness, clutching the red ball in both hands like it was a life raft.

"Hey," he said, in a low and urgent voice, fixing her with an intense stare, "Hey. I'm still gonna fight. And I'm not gonna give up—not now and not ever. I can't tell you what's going to happen, kid, but I'm _never_ gonna give up. And you shouldn't either." He tried to put as much sincerity behind his words as he could and he looked straight into the child's eyes in sheer and utter determination.

She toyed with a loose bit of plastic on her ball. "I believe you, sir," she said to her ball. She turned to leave again, but Kirk called out to her. He wasn't sure why, but he felt compelled to speak to this girl, goaded by some inner force.

"Wait!" he said, "Wait. What's your name?"

"Charlotte Anne LeClair," she recited, "But my dad calls me Cal for short." She said it fondly as though she liked the way the name tasted in her mouth.

"Hey, Charlotte Anne LeClair or Cal for short," Kirk smiled holding out his hand to her, "I'm James Tiberius Kirk, but you can call me Jim."

"Jim," she repeated shaking his hand shyly, "I like it."

"Good. Me, too."

They smiled at each other for a moment. She seemed to be struggling on the edge of a thought, but didn't know if she could voice it to the young captain in front of her. She chewed on her lip a little bit and bounced on the balls of her feet, clearly on the verge of saying something. Kirk chuckled inwardly to himself at the sheer innocence of the child standing before him. She had a clear, intelligent look about her face and he felt drawn to her as if she had some inner electricity inside of her that crackled with its energy.

"Jim? Can I ask you something?" The words tumbled out of her mouth one after the other.

"Sure, anything."

She paused again, looking at him through those luminescent eyes. "How come you're not afraid?" The phrase was again whispered, but this time Kirk caught every word. Cal struggled with the next sentence, bravely fighting off the tears that had appeared in her eyes. "I've been trying and trying to stop—but I can't, and I'm just so afraid that they'll hurt everybody and—"

Kirk held out his hand to her once again. "Here—c'mere." She trotted forward and grabbed it, snuffling back tears. He plunked her down on the ground beside him and put his arm around her tiny shoulders and she sniffed a little as she leaned against his side. The ball lay forgotten on the ground beside her.

"Can you keep a secret?" he said quietly so that only she could hear him.

He felt rather than saw her head nod against his chest.

Staring out at the colonists huddled about the enclosure, he held the child a little closer. "I'm afraid, too," he said, "God, I'm scared out of my mind."

She stared up at him in wonder. "But—but you've been so brave. Even Dad says you're braver than everyone else here put together."

"Being brave doesn't mean that you can't be scared, too. Sometimes you're bravest when you're the most scared."

"But," she protested, rubbing her eyes, "But that doesn't make sense. How can you be brave when you're scared? They're opposites."

"Nah," he said smiling, "They're not, really. More often than not they go hand in hand."

She looked at him skeptically.

"Okay, fine," he said, chuckling, "I'll prove it. You wanna hear a story?"

She nodded.

"Okay, good. I've got this friend, yeah? Big guy. Taller than me, even. Grumpiest man you'll ever meet-but just wait until he gets around his daughter—he turns into a huge pile of goo. It's kind of gross, actually."

Cal laughed appreciatively. "He sounds nice," she said, grinning.

"Oh he's not. Trust me. Meanest doctor you'll ever get. _Terrible_ bedside manner. But maybe that's only with me. See this little mark?" Kirk pulled down the neck of his uniform to reveal a small red circle just below the collar line on his skin. "_That's_ from all the times he's jammed a hypospray down my neck."

Cal touched the mark lightly and eyed Kirk askance. "I'll bet you deserved it," she said shrewdly after a few seconds.

Kirk laughed outright. "You might be right, Cal. You might be right. But that's not the point of the story. We're talking about my friend, here. You see, he has this awful fear of flying. He's living _in space_ and he doesn't like to fly. Crazy, right? Well, there was this one time when he had to save my skin and crash land in a broken shuttle at the same time."

"He did that?" she asked, her eyes growing rounder and rounder.

"Yeah, yeah, he did! And the shuttle was spewing flames and everything!"

"Really?" said Cal in awe. "What happened?"

"Well, we were on this planet a long way away from here…" And Kirk began to explain. He could remember it clearly in his mind's eye as if it had occurred mere hours rather ago rather than after a year and a half. He spoke as if it were a fairy tale, editing and changing some pieces to make it more suitable for Cal, but he could remember it exactly as it had happened…

_To be continued..._


	2. I Bones

_AN—Why does this always happen? I was planning on putting up this portion like a week ago. __**Two**__ weeks ago, even, but then real life got the better of me. Yikes. From now on, I'm gonna try and stick to a schedule of updating once or twice a week, but sorry if I fall behind! Also-I changed the composition of this piece so it'll be in 7 bits now—at first I was planning on lumping a few portions together, but I think it'll flow better as a longer story. Thanks y'all for reading, reviewing, alerting, favorite-ing, and generally being awesome. I hope you continue to enjoy this story and—as always—please review! Dankeschön!  
_

_Disclaimer—Not mine!_

**1. Bones**

The shuttlecraft was old—that was for certain—and Kirk only had a vague idea of how the alien technology actually worked, not to mention he could tell that it hadn't been used in a long time—not for years perhaps. But that also meant it would be easier and faster to break into, and that was exactly what they needed at the moment.

"There's nothing for it, Bones," Kirk said, staring down at it in tired resignation, "We're gonna have to take it."

"What?" He felt Bones shift his hold around his shoulders in order to see him better. "No. No way in hell, Jim."

"Well," Kirk replied reasonably, fighting back the bile in his throat, "D'you have any better ideas?"

"Oh I don't know," McCoy shot back. "How about not getting captured in the first place? How about never having to escape because we made the _smart_ decision and resolved things straight from the Enterprise? How about leaving things well enough alone?"

"Sorry," Kirk said, shooting McCoy an all-too-innocent grin, "But it's a little too late for all those things, so it looks like the shuttle's our only option. You good?" He winced, the pain in his stomach giving him a particularly unpleasant stab at that exact moment. He ignored it and looked questioningly back at McCoy.

McCoy stared at him for a full five seconds. "No!" he said, and Kirk saw a flash of real panic steal across the doctor's face before it was replaced with anger. "No, I am not '_good'_! You know damn well I'm no pilot, and _you—_you can't even stand up straight, let alone fly a shuttle! I can't let you do that—we'll find some other way. There's gotta be another way."

Kirk opened his mouth, prepared to tell McCoy that he was absolutely fine, but before he could, a shudder ran up his spine and he began to cough raggedly. Red flecks splattered his hand and sweat ran down his face, and though he couldn't feel them at the moment, he could tell that his and legs were shaking with exertion. Their captors had hit him with something strong, that was for certain, but if he and McCoy didn't move quickly, those same captors would find them again and they would both be in for far worse than what they had endured so far. They needed that shuttle.

But Kirk's moment of weakness was all McCoy needed to seal his fear and before Kirk could speak, he said with determination, "We are _not_ taking that thing. You can't—"

Kirk didn't let his friend get any farther. "Look," he said through another racking cough. He wiped the blood from his mouth impatiently with a dirtied sleeve and continued, "All we have to do is fly that thing up into the atmosphere, hack the communications and let the Enterprise know where we are. They'll see us, beam us out, and that'll be the end of it. Five minutes. That's all it'll take. Just five minutes."

McCoy shifted on his feet, still uneasily eyeing the foreign contraption. "You do know how many things could go wrong, don't you? One tiny crack in the hull means we'll be dead within fifteen seconds of entering space. One damaged engine means we'll hurtle back down to the atmosphere and burn because of it."

"Yeah, but on the other hand, _it might actually work_. Bones, we gotta take a chance on this."

The two friends stared at each other, Kirk determined, McCoy apprehensive.

McCoy paused. Kirk knew from the assessing glance his friend gave him that McCoy was worried about Kirk's rapidly deteriorating condition. But after a moment something seemed to resolve in McCoy's eyes and he shifted Kirk's arm more solidly around his shoulders. "Five minutes?" he asked grimly.

"Not a second more," Kirk replied, nodding slightly.

"Then let's do this," McCoy said and heaved Kirk forward into the suffocating confines of the alien shuttle.

It was dark inside, and musty, and they had to do a weird sort of do-si-do to get them both in at the same time, McCoy supporting Kirk, and Kirk listing oddly to the side. Finally McCoy succeeded in depositing Kirk into one of the rickety chairs in front of the dashboard and he took the seat next to it somewhat reluctantly. Kirk watched as the doctor strapped himself in, and he didn't miss it, despite his own less than coherent condition, when McCoy's eyes darted ever so quickly around the shuttle's interior as if categorizing everything about it that was unsafe or in danger of complete and utter failure.

"You gonna be okay?" he asked McCoy with a half smile, eyeing the tense doctor askance through half-closed lids.

"Just get us the hell out of here," McCoy said gruffly through his teeth, turning to Kirk and pulling the straps tight around his friend's shoulders.

"You got it," Kirk replied, and he sat up straighter, flipping a switch and punching the ignition. The shuttle groaned into life. Kirk shook his head, irritated, trying to shrug off the feeling of fever burning behind his eyelids, and steeled himself to the thought of piloting the shuttle. It wouldn't take long, he reasoned. It would just be a quick trip. Just like a flying exercise back at the Academy. His vision seemed to be tipping ominously, but he took a deep, calming breath and gripped the controls steadily. He was on the point of detaching from the dock when McCoy suddenly spoke up after an oddly long silence.

"What happens," McCoy asked abruptly, "when they see us take off in their shuttle? I mean, their sensors can't be that bad. They may not be the smartest, Jim, but they can put two and two together…"

"I'll fly us low for a while—that should keep them in the dark for a while at least. We only have to keep going long enough to contact the Enterprise," Kirk said while he worked, taking the shuttle, groaning and clanking off the ground. He wiped a bit of sweat off his forehead with a quivering hand.

"It won't take long for them to see us, Jim," McCoy pointed out in a low growl.

"Well, we're just gonna have to be fast, Bones," Kirk answered, avoiding McCoy's eyes as he piloted the shuttle slowly out of the hangar. It jolted and pitched ever so slightly as it protested at the movement after so long being dormant.

McCoy didn't answer him, apparently too angry or too afraid for words, but Kirk took no notice, flying the shuttle out into the shocking daylight slowly and carefully, checking the sensors once every few seconds, sure that the enemies would see them and their little venture would end far more abruptly than it had started.

He flew the shuttle this way and that, careful, wary—slow and steady was the trick, slow and steady. But as the minutes and the silence between the two occupants of the shuttle stretched, Kirk could feel a shiver pass down his spine, and his vision sparked with white lights. His mouth tickled with vomit and the tang of bloody acid. He clamped his jaw shut. He knew he couldn't hold this sickness at bay for much longer—he had to make a move before he lost control completely. His hands twitched on the controls and they shot rapidly upward, and McCoy gave a yell of shock.

"Jim, _what are you doing?"_ came his panicked cry.

They broke through the first layer of low hanging clouds with a rush and a whirr, and for one glorious moment, Kirk thought they were in the clear—that it would really be that easy, but it was then that a single flashing light in the corner of the console caught his attention and his already heaving stomach pitched clear into his throat.

"_Shit."_

"What?" McCoy asked tensely, not taking his eyes from the viewscreen, "What happened?"

Kirk barely even heard him as the shuttle began to shake with speed and he feverishly tried to blink away the effects of whatever the aliens had hit him with, trying determinedly to correct his error. But his fingers were slow, far too slow to fix what had gone so horribly wrong.

"Jim!" McCoy's voice snapped next to him, and he could hear the dread rising in his friend's voice. "_What happened?_"

"I…" Kirk said, glancing up at McCoy and then back to the console. His vision was refusing to behave properly. White spots popped before him and the lights of the console suddenly seemed blurred and over bright. "I…" He tried again, swallowing, but something huge and monstrous felt like it was clawing its way up Kirk's throat and he could do nothing to fight it off any longer. The world pitched suddenly and he lost track of everything—the console, McCoy, the shuttle—as his body emptied itself of what felt like every vital substance within it. It stopped as suddenly as it had started, but his stomach remained tense, and Kirk lapsed into dry heaves until he felt McCoy's soft hands supporting his shoulders.

He reeled dazedly. Brushing McCoy's hands off with an obstinate shake, he blinked to clear his vision. A dark red substance splattered the keypad in front of him, the front of his uniform, and bits of the floor, but he only gave them a passing glance. He had other things to worry about.

"I tripped the base's sensors," he said to McCoy, heaving. Their eyes locked. "They've seen us."

No sooner had he said it then the shuttlecraft gave an almighty jolt and they both pitched forward, alarms blaring simultaneously as all turned to absolute chaos. Kirk lurched onto the console and attempted to gain control of the shuttle once more, but a second blast caught the opposite side of the ship and further alarms sounded. Cold sweat slicked Kirk's face and hands and he swayed unsteadily, hands feverishly flying across the controls, but the shuttle was lagging, spinning out of control, and he knew that they were going to crash—that much couldn't be avoided—but if he could just break into the communications barrier…

"Jim! _Jim!_" McCoy's whitened face swam out of the air beside him. He felt McCoy's grip on his arm, but he didn't stop moving his hands across the dashboard. "Tell me what to do. _You have to tell me what to do!_"

Alarms shouted and confused him, the shuttle shook uncontrollably, McCoy was yelling, and Kirk knew that he had to focus; he had to save them both, but the white lights were back, and the monster inside his throat had clawed its way up once again. Sounds had become blurred and the world outside seemed to slow down. With the breath he had remaining, he gasped out to McCoy beside him, "Take them… take the controls… Jus'… just hold on… I can… I can do it…"

A keening pain shot through his abdomen, and he doubled over, retching. Bile rose up his throat once more and he involuntarily spat a mouthful of dark vomit over the console. He knew more was coming, threatening to overpower him, but he swallowed it back long enough to enter three more keystrokes with shaking hands. Communications crackled and he gave a short bark of triumphant laughter, but no sooner had he opened a channel then the sickness mastered him completely.

Vomit spilled out of his mouth with such force that it splattered all over the floor, and he was sure, though he couldn't quite see anything, that he had gotten it all over McCoy's uniform. He could not stop the flow, however, and he shook violently as his body expelled whatever there was left of his stomach onto the interior of the shuttle. It only subsided when he felt he had expelled his own vital organs and he slumped shivering in his chair, no longer able to move any of his muscles. They twitched involuntarily and he had confused views of a rapidly approaching forest, hurtling toward them with such speed that he was sure he was dreaming.

Something seemed to be wrong with his hearing as well. It kept going in and out, mixing muffled shouts of his name with the too-loud _bangs_ and _cracks_ of the failing shuttle. His head flopped to the side and he had a blurred view of McCoy grabbing onto the controls for dear life, yelling the whole way.

His hearing came back long enough to hear McCoy shout, "_IF YOU DIE, I'LL KILL YOU, JIM!"_

And then he was gone, sinking into a field of dark, simply unable to remain conscious any longer…

…

He awoke to the sound of an odd mechanical beeping and whirring, but he kept his eyes shut, too tired to open them just yet. He clenched his hands on something gloriously soft beneath him and sniffed the air just barely, testing. It smelled wrong to his nose; sterile and far too _clean_. Sickbay—it had to be. He groaned and shifted, trying to remember exactly what had happened that would land him here in such a state.

"You back with the living, Jim?" a rough voice said above him.

Kirk groaned again. "Wha—? What happened?" he mumbled, coughing feebly. His head throbbed achingly and when he attempted to open his eyes, a stabbing light from above made him move to shield himself from it, but someone grabbed his arms and after a moment the light dimmed.

"What happened?" repeated the voice of McCoy from somewhere above him, "I'll tell you what happened. You passed out after hacking communications and then vomiting all over the keypad. Chose the perfect time to go unconscious, by the way. Engines down, aliens attacking, and pilot out for the count… I managed to hail the Enterprise but it wasn't until _after_ we crashed and those aliens started circling around that they beamed us out. You should really talk to Engineering about cutting out this beaming-out-just-in-the-nick-of-time crap. It would keep everyone's blood pressure a lot lower if they would just speed it all up."

"Oh. S-sorry," Kirk slurred.

"Sorry?" McCoy repeated testily, "What for—the part where you said it'd only take five minutes or the part where you passed out and made _me _crash land the goddamned shuttle?"

"No," said Kirk hazily, screwing up his face in an attempt to remember, "I think I threw up on you. 'S gross. 'M sorry."

McCoy's voice sounded exasperated. "I definitely have you on the good stuff, don't I?" Kirk saw his vague form pause to check something on the console by the bed. McCoy sighed and turned back to Kirk. "Eh, don't worry about it anyway," he said, "You can throw up on me as much as you like, so long as you don't ask me to fly again soon."

Kirk tried to chuckle, but it only came out as a weak sort of gurgle.

"Hey, Bones?" he asked suddenly. Kirk could feel the unconsciousness looming, ready to take him, but he wanted to voice this one last thought before he gave in. Somehow it felt very important.

"Yes, Jim?" McCoy answered back, his voice somehow distant.

Kirk's eyes slid closed and he let himself float for a moment in between sleeping and waking. "Thanks… for the whole flying thing… I'm glad we're not… you know… dead."

"Yeah, well…" McCoy said from a long way off, "I wasn't gonna let that happen, now was I?"

Kirk gave one last grateful snort of laughter before sleep claimed him for good, and he sunk down into the warmth of the bed around him, thoughts scattering into the calm of a deep black…

...

"Wow," said Cal at the end of Kirk's story.

"Yeah," Kirk said, "Wow about does it."

"Jim?" she asked quietly after a pause.

"Yeah?"

"He's a really good friend, isn't he?"

"Yeah. Bones'll do just about anything to protect his pack. He's sort of like a big mama bear that way." Kirk paused. "I'm really lucky to have him."

They sat like that in silence for a few moments; Kirk pensive, Cal snuggled up against his arm.

"Jim?" she asked again.

"Yeah?"

She scooted a bit closer. "He was really brave, wasn't he?"

"Yeah, he was."

Pause.

"Do you think I can be that brave?"

Kirk looked down at her. "Are you kidding? Of course you can! You're every bit as brave as Bones."

She only shook her head.

"Look," he said, "Would it make you feel better if I told another story?"

"Yeah," she whispered.

"You'll like this one," he assured her. "It's about how a singular woman faced down an entire alien army _and_ saved a friend and me with only one Christmas Clementine."

Cal looked at him through narrowed eyes. "You're making that up," she accused him.

"Maybe I am," Kirk said as mysteriously as he could, "and maybe I'm not. You'll just have to listen and see."

"Okay, but I'm not saying I believe you yet…"

"To tell the truth, I wouldn't believe me either. But it does make a really great story. Let me just say that it's a _really_ good thing Uhura played baseball so much with her brothers when she was a kid…"

_To be continued…_


	3. II Uhura

_Author's Note—Holy deadlines, Batman! I'm super late! Er… yeah… Sorry for another long delayed update! Suffered from a nasty bout of writer's block… and I've been focusing a bit more on developing my art skills rather than writing recently. Applying for art school next year! *Crosses fingers*_

_Anyway, thanks as always for reading—please review! _

_Disclaimer—I do not own Star Trek or any of the ass-kickery associated with it._

**II. Uhura**

The crowd of men dressed in red overwhelmed and confused Kirk from his position on a platform elevated slightly above the throng. He was barely conscious, his eyes sliding in and out of focus and his body slumped against a slightly more rigid form behind him. He could not tell how his Vulcan counterpart fared, but it couldn't have been any better than Kirk himself because despite the attempt to sit up straight, Spock's head rested decidedly against Kirk's and his hands tied to Kirk's behind his back were lax and unresponsive. Every once in a while, the platform would shake as something—he had no idea what—stirred in the pit below. He could only assume that whatever shifted beneath was sure to be very bad for both his and Spock's already declined health.

Kirk contemplated his situation vaguely. He wondered how it was that on Christmas Eve he found himself tied to Spock on a large wooden executioner's platform beaten to within an inch of consciousness and captive of a barbarian tribe, when he was _supposed_ to be at a shore party where he undoubtedly would have been covertly spiking the eggnog and watching the effects on his friends as they grew progressively wilder throughout the night.

But he shouldn't be daydreaming about how nicely Nurse Chapel's chest would look in a slutty Santa suit, he told himself firmly; he should be focusing on the problem at hand. But this proved difficult, as his thoughts were as fuzzy as his vision.

"Captain," came Spock's voice from a long way off, as Kirk's head lolled against the Vulcan's, "You must not allow yourself to lose consciousness."

"Huh?" Kirk mumbled sleepily, thoughts again straying to Chapel's mile-high legs.

"Do not fall asleep," Spock warned again. "You are showing symptoms of a concussion."

"Sure, Spock," Kirk said closing his eyes. A bout of nausea overcame him and he did his best to swallow the bile, but when that didn't work he spat it all up over his shirt, soaking the command yellow with watery acid. Somewhat ruefully, he thought to himself that the shirt had already been vomit-colored anyway. He hadn't ruined it. Not _really_.

Exhausted, he slumped back down against Spock's back, his head throbbing worse than any hangover he'd ever had—including the one after that one night back at the Academy where he'd taken one Venatian whiskey too many. _Well,_ he thought to himself over the colossal ache in his cranium, _a _few_ too many. _His head pounded particularly nastily and he amended, _Well, _a lot_ too many._ He groaned, the combined memory of the hangover and the actual effects of the concussion becoming too much for him to stomach all at once.

"Jim," Spock's voice had become slightly more urgent, "You cannot—"

But Spock stopped dead mid-sentence, and his back stiffened against Kirk's limp form as the crowd around them seemed to surge all of a sudden. A torrent of noise confused them as the aliens stamped and shouted, pulling their spears forward and smashing the butts into the ground in a series of deafening crashes.

For a new figure had shoved its way through the crowd towards the platform. A flash of black caught Kirk's eye when it flicked through the overwhelming mob of red.

Kirk blinked.

He thought he had seen… but it _couldn't_ have been—

"Nyota," Spock's voice was so soft that Kirk wasn't even sure if he realized that he had said the name out loud. But sure enough, Kirk could now make out a decidedly distinctive ponytail weaving its way through the red-cloaked crowd. Kirk and Spock scrambled to sit up straighter, craning their necks as far as they could to see the woman now shoving her way toward them.

"Uhura!" Kirk yelled, but his shout was lost in the howls of the crowd.

"What's she doing?" Kirk hissed, swinging around to Spock. "She got away—why the _hell_ is she back?"

"I would assume," Spock muttered tersely, "she is attempting an ill-thought-out rescue attempt for the two of us."

"What's she on about, endangering herself like this?" Kirk shot back in a furious undertone, "We're doing fine."

"'Fine,'" Spock repeated, "You are perhaps fortunate that 'fine' has variable definitions, Captain, or I would be inclined to disagree."

"Spock," Kirk whispered back warningly, "We're fine. Now we just have to make sure _she_ is, too."

"Affirmative," Spock agreed and the two of them swept the crowd again in search of the Lieutenant's form. She had made it as far as the base of their morbid stage, but before they could speak to her, a gargantuan alien hand encircled her arm and pulled her roughly onto the platform itself. Spock yelled something that Kirk didn't catch, and Kirk himself let out a snarl and tried to pull towards Uhura, but he only succeeded in giving himself a nastier rope burn than before and renewing the excessive pounding in his head.

But the alien did not pull Uhura away from them; on the contrary, he dragged her forward and threw her on the ground beside the awkward bodies of Kirk and Spock. They immediately strained to get to her and flopped ungracefully sideways onto the rough wood of the platform together looking rather like a deformed fish on dry land. Kirk's head cracked sharply against Spock's, and he reeled against pain upon his recently concussed brain, very nearly losing consciousness. He came to himself again to hear Spock attempting to speak with Uhura but she ignored them both as she picked herself regally up off the splinter-covered ground.

Kirk studied her intently from his place on the floor. She appeared to be in relatively good condition at least peripherally, he was relieved to see. Her hair was a little mussed and the brown satchel slung over her shoulder had partially ripped, but other than that she seemed completely fine. The alien who had pulled her up the platform had stepped aside, and a second took his place—their executioner, it had to be, for he had been the one who had been lurking with apparent glee at the edge of the platform close to an enormous lever connected to a trapdoor in the center of the stage that surely signified sudden death. Uhura faced the executioner all the same with contempt and the only thing that betrayed any fear was the slight shake of her hands, which she balled quickly into fists as she glared at the man before her.

But when she spoke, it was not in Starfleet Standard but a series of guttural growls and clicks and sounded nothing like normal-Uhura. She was in her element, in her land of foreign tongues and languages, and Kirk allowed himself to space out for a few seconds, staring at her slack-jawed and lost in the cadence of the language, the beat of the words matching the throb in his head as if a snare drummer was determined to use his skull as a practicing board.

The alien and Uhura spoke furiously to each other, gesticulating wildly and shouting. Uhura kept pointing to the captain and first officer on the floor, yelling some repeated phrase angrily, and to Kirk, despite the fuzzy condition of his head, it was clear that she was arguing (foolishly) for his and Spock's release. His mind raced as fast as the throbbing would allow. _Stupid, Uhura,_ he scolded mentally, _Stupid, idiotic, brainless…_ He didn't listen when a smaller, quieter and infinitely more annoying voice in the back of his head reminded him that in Uhura's position, he probably would have done the same thing.

Meanwhile, the crowd around them had begun to get restless. They had come to see an execution, after all, and they wanted blood, not useless arguments. The pounding of the spears became ever more prominent and Kirk had to screw up his eyes against the headache it caused. He knew that if Uhura didn't finish whatever she was planning quickly, they would all soon be dead. But Uhura ignored the crowd just as thoroughly as she had ignored Kirk and Spock and simply kept on arguing with the executioner who advanced on her threateningly. His footfalls shook the platform.

Standing her ground Uhura babbled in the alien language, her voice growing progressively higher and higher with each of the executioner's steps forward. He had an ugly look on his already ugly face—Kirk thought distractedly that he rather looked like his stepfather's crotchety old bulldog—and his beady eyes raked Uhura menacingly.

But Uhura kept talking. Her voice had soon risen to the pitch and tone where Kirk was pretty sure only a bat could understand what she was saying, but she carried on anyway, her head held high and her lip quivering only the barest amount.

The alien stood close to her—far too close for Kirk's or Spock's comfort—and leaned down to glare into her eyes. He glanced at the two on the ground and then leered at her, grunting something that sounded threatening. Kirk and Spock, helpless on the ground and half passed out, couldn't do anything to help her.

But then the executioner turned around abruptly and strode down the stairs of the platform and disappeared into the crowd without a backward glance. Uhura appeared slightly taken aback. She turned to the two of them on the ground, a stricken look on her face. Falling to her knees with a gasp, she gripped Kirk's arm and cupped Spock's face with her free hand. "Spock," she said breathlessly, "Kirk, are you all right?"

Kirk ignored her comment and overrode Spock's attempts to ask after her own well-being. There were more pressing matters to attend to. "Uhura, what th' _hell_ just happened?" he slurred.

Uhura blinked. "I don't know," she said, and her eyes widened as Kirk stared at her incredulously. "I mean, I do know, but…" she trailed off and bit her lip. "Well… you're not going to like it."

They both stared at her expectantly and (on Kirk's side) impatiently.

She looked uncertainly from one to the other before speaking quickly and quietly, the words almost tumbling over one another. "I—I told them that you two ought to be let free or else I would call the… uh… well, the forces from the sky down upon them—because they don't have a word for Starfleet—and that they would be crushed unless they listened—because that's what their culture responds to—and, well, he didn't seem that threatened so I—er—well, I demanded to speak to their leader and—now he's coming," she finished lamely.

Both Spock and Kirk attempted to speak at once, but she held up a hand.

"Look," she said flatly, "I'm just buying time—an away team is coming, and I couldn't just leave you. Just play along, okay? I'm gonna get you guys out of here." She was tight-lipped and terser than usual and Kirk could tell beneath the façade she was terrified, but her voice was strong and her grip on his arm firm.

"Nyota," Spock broke in quietly, his voice rough and slightly slurred. Kirk could tell from behind him that the Vulcan was reeling slightly from his injuries. "If you'll allow me to—"

"No, Spock," she whispered leaning in close, "Just trust me, it'll be okay." From her tone, she sounded like she was convincing herself as much as Spock. She closed the distance between them and kissed him lingeringly on the lips. Kirk looked away pointedly.

But this unfortunately meant that he now stared straight into the eyes of the alien executioner across the platform. Kirk only had time to utter a small "Oh, shit," in warning when the executioner was there, hanging over Uhura's shoulder with the self-same leer still plastered on his mottled face. Uhura gasped and scrambled to her feet, standing in front of Kirk and Spock with her arms outstretched wide to protect them, though she must have known well that the gesture would not make the slightest difference. The executioner grabbed her arm in a vice-like grip, and both Spock and Kirk tensed. Uhura shot them both a pacifying look over her shoulder as she was half-dragged across the platform towards a new figure that had appeared out of the crowd that Kirk could only assume was the leader.

The new alien who now stood on the platform was even bigger, if possible, than the bulldog-faced executioner. Obviously this culture responded most to physical strength rather than cleverness or mental acuity because the creature that now stood before Uhura was the most gargantuan mountain of a man that Kirk had ever seen. The tiny proportions of his head compared to his monstrous body simply did not make sense. His tiny eyes swiveled around the platform, taking in the scene slowly, and meanly, jowls quivering in annoyance. But once his eyes settled on Uhura, an unmistakable smile spread across his features and he approached her deliberately.

Uhura held her ground even though she was literally dwarfed by the man in front of her. He waited until he was a mere two feet from her (clearly this culture had no concept of personal space as well) before he began to speak. Once he started his speech, however, Kirk ceased to pay attention. Hopefully, he thought as he worked his hands slowly against his bindings behind his back, hopefully the leader would go on long enough for both he and Spock to ease out of the ropes that tied them. Hopefully, that would give them a chance to run over, grab Uhura, and get off the platform… And then hopefully they'd sprout wings and fly away, Kirk thought wryly, his hands pausing mid-wriggle. _Oh well,_ he thought as he continued the slight twisting of his hands,_ we'll just have to wing it._

One of the guards at the edge of the platform chose that unfortunate moment to notice Kirk's minute struggle and strode over to administer a viscous kick to Kirk's ribs. Pain exploded against his torso and he doubled up against Spock. When he finally regained himself again, the leader had gone suddenly silent. The crowd stared up at the scene on the platform, waiting. All attention seemed to focus on the Lieutenant in the center of it all.

Then Uhura grunted one single syllable, but this one syllable apparently carried a lot of weight with it, because the utter silence of the crowd broke as they all howled in what seemed to be wild revelry. The leader had frozen, a look somewhere between surprise and delight frozen on his ugly features, but the surprise only lasted for a moment and he opened his mouth to utter a sound that could only mean one thing. It started out low, but grew louder and louder with each passing second. Kirk's heart bypassed his stomach and sank right through the splinter-covered floor, for it was clear what that sound was. The leader was laughing.

"I do _not_ like the sound of that, Spock," Kirk muttered somewhat breathlessly (the concussion was getting to him again), "I do not like it at all."

But Spock had no chance to reply because the leader had begun to speak again, this time addressing the crowd. His voice boomed over the multitude, and whatever he said pleased his followers to the point of elation because the spear shaking and shouting returned with greater fervor than before. Uhura stood quietly nearby. Kirk could only see the back of her head, but judging by the stiff set of her shoulders, he could tell that she had frozen from shock.

The leader, finished with his speech, then abruptly turned on his heel and marched to the edge of the platform amid fervid howls from the audience. A guard had materialized out of nowhere and handed the leader a large and lethal looking club. Another approached Uhura and shoved a second, slightly smaller club into her hands. The instant he let it go, Uhura's hands dropped with the weight of it and it thudded onto the platform. She stared at it for a second, and then let it fall, turning around and dashing back to Kirk and Spock.

"What?" Kirk asked when Uhura came just into hearing range again above the din of the crowd, "What's happening? What did he say? What did _you_ say?"

Uhura knelt down next to them for the second time. She paused, avoiding both sets of eyes trained on her. She appeared to be gathering herself. "He said…" she began, trailed off, swallowed, then started again, "He said that he has no quarrel with me. He says that I showed bravery in facing down this entire crowd. But he says that you two… He says that you two will not be able to go free unless I defeat their best warrior."

"And what did you say?" Kirk asked at once, though he already knew the answer.

"I said I would," she said, an ounce of defiance creeping into her tone.

Kirk closed his eyes. He was fairly certain that Spock had done the same thing.

"And I'll bet I can guess who their best warrior is," Kirk said, snapping his eyes open to view the alien leader across the platform. He had taken off his red robe and was now taking experimental swings with his club that looked like they could knock out a baby elephant. Kirk winced.

"Uhura, _this is insane,_" he hissed and then stopped because the hissing hurt his head. Luckily he didn't have to continue, because Spock picked up on his thought.

"Yes, I agree, Lieutenant, this is highly illogical. The odds of you defeating their leader in battle are-"

"Spock, I don't want to hear about the odds," Uhura said with a little shake of her head as if she were trying to upset a particularly irritating fly. "Look, we only have to wait a few more minutes. Engineering's sending down an away team and then-"

Kirk decided it was the time to interrupt her. "And then _what_, Uhura? _What_ exactly? You have no plan, no way out, no _bullshit_—"

"In other words, I have what you have _every single mission_," Uhura snapped back.

Kirk opened his mouth to retort, but Uhura held up her hand. She had paused, head poised like a jackal on the alert. It was only then that Kirk realized that the crowd had taken up a chant; a single word repeated over and over again. Uhura looked nervous.

"Uhura, what is that?" he asked warily, "What are they saying?"

"I don't know!" she answered back slightly hysterically, "They keep saying 'Gruthnuk' over and over again but I don't know what that is! Their dialect is really primitive. 'Gruthin' is 'carnivore' and 'nuk' means either 'pocket watch' or 'lizard'—I can't remember which, but…" Uhura broke off, her eyes growing round as the three of them stared at each other with dawning comprehension.

"So, let me get this straight," Kirk began quietly in a voice of forced calm, "if you're right, then if you lose… we'll all be fed to a _carnivorous_ _lizard_?"

"Or a… pocket watch," Uhura added miserably.

"Nyota," Spock began, still straining against the ropes around his wrists. He gave a particularly sharp jerk pulling Kirk's arms up uncomfortably. Kirk retaliated with an elbow to Spock's ribs but Spock paid it no attention. His body was shaking. "Nyota, it is unnecessary for you to participate in this competition. You must not—"

But the alien leader bore down on her even as Spock spoke and pulled her roughly away. Spock jerked harder against the bonds. "No!" he shouted. Kirk got the impression that the word had slipped out without him even meaning to speak it.

Even as they struggled to get to her, they found themselves dragged even farther away. Two guards lining the edge of the platform had grabbed them roughly, cut the bonds that held them, and pulled them away to stand and watch the forthcoming battle. Kirk twisted and fought against the guard that held him, but try as he might, the guard's grip was too strong. To his left, Kirk saw that Spock had not struggled, but only watched Uhura, his eyes dark. He had no doubt calculated his own potential strength against that of the guard that held him and found his own stamina wanting. Kirk could almost see Spock's mind working as he stared at Uhura in the center of the platform, but he couldn't see any hope that either of them could somehow beat their own guards and run to Uhura's aid. Nevertheless, Kirk struggled anew, hoping to catch his captor by surprise—but to no avail.

Meanwhile, Uhura had picked up her club as far as she could. The object was ridiculously large. Kirk was sure even Spock could not lift it high enough to do any damage. Uhura swallowed, looking queasy. She turned to the side, maybe to ask for a slightly more manageable club, but as soon as she had looked away, the leader charged.

"Uhura!" Kirk shouted out in warning.

Uhura's head snapped back toward her attacker as he let out a gutteral roar. Uhura had no time to react, no defense at the ready. Her only option—and the option that she chose—was to dive out of the way, leaving the oversized club to crash uselessly to the floor. Fortunately for Uhura, the leader had overshot. He had misjudged the speed of Uhura's reflexes and his huge momentum had him lumbering long past her all the way to the edge of the platform. All the same, Uhura only had moments to adjust. She ran back to the dropped club, heaved it once, and dropped it again, as the leader charged her again.

Kirk's pulse raced. Every passing moment was a moment closer to Uhura's death. He tried twisting again, but nothing he did helped. The guard's grip around his arms simply would not budge. Desperation rose in his throat as he watched Uhura dodge around her attacker, trying to get behind him, or gain some ground, but the advantage was so outrageously against her, that nothing could have possibly helped her. The platform trembled periodically as something stirred beneath, upset perhaps by the commotion up above.

Then, after a particularly violent tremble, Uhura stumbled. In a moment that seemed suspended in time, her heel caught on one of the uneven planks and she wavered and then fell inevitably backward.

She hit the ground hard. Her satchel slipped off her shoulder and smashed its contents everywhere, a tricorder and a now broken communications earpiece mixing freely with what appeared to be Uhura's packed lunch. Brightly colored sweets and a neatly wrapped sandwich squashed on the ground and a small orange Clementine rolled across the floor to come to a rest a few feet from Uhura's head. Uhura paid the scattered items no mind as the alien leader came pacing toward her with clearly malicious intent. He looked like an overlarge bird of prey zeroing in on his target, cool and confident that Uhura could do nothing to stop him.

And Kirk found himself praying—praying that the away team would come, that the ropes would somehow miraculously slip, that something—_anything—_would allow him to help the fallen lieutenant, but no matter how hard he struggled, his captors held him and Spock far too tightly. Spock was struggling behind him. Kirk himself had no idea what was coming out of his mouth so intent was he on escape. He tried stamping on his captors' feet, but they only held him tighter and he only managed to crack his head against their rough armor, almost losing himself to unconsciousness once more.

Regaining himself, he watched in horror as Uhura scrabbled madly backwards away from the alien. He came ever closer. She slipped and fell hard on her elbow as her palm came into contact with something small and orange and round that Kirk couldn't quite make out.

She grabbed the object and stared at it, her expression one of pure shock.

In her hand she held the Clementine.

Uhura's eyes flicked from the Clementine to the alien to the floor and, oddly, to the edge of the platform and back to the Clementine again. Her gaze was calculating.

Then, just as the alien was a mere three feet from her, club raised high above his brutish head, she threw the Clementine with all the speed and accuracy of a professional baseball player not at her immediate attacker, but at the executioner at the edge of the platform.

It hit perfectly on the side of his fleshy cheek and bits of orange and pulp splattered everywhere. Time stood still and the executioner teetered, his back foot slipping off the platform. He wheeled his arms comically like a gigantic, ugly windmill in an attempt to regain his balance and grabbed onto the only thing available to him to break his fall: the lever that opened the trapdoor to the lizard—or pocket watch—or whatever it was that lay in wait beneath—a trapdoor that Uhura's attacker stood directly above.

And with that, the platform's trapdoor flew open as the executioner struggled to steady himself, and Kirk, Spock, and Uhura were privy to one single look of utter shock on the loutish attacker's face before he fell, club still raised, into the pit below.

There was a second's delay, followed by a muffled _flump_ from within the pit. A second's delay more, and the screams began followed by a roar of what could only be a lizard the size of a Tyrannosaurus Rex.

The crowd had fallen utterly silent. Uhura looked sickened. Everyone had frozen.

Everyone except for Spock. Taking advantage of his captor's shock, he twisted out of the alien's grip with a neat jerk and didn't quite run, but rather strode quickly to join Uhura at the center of the platform. She had picked herself up carefully, still staring at the open trapdoor. She gathered herself for a moment, casting a grateful glance at Spock by her side, then leveled her gaze on the guard that held Kirk and spoke clearly some phrase in the alien tongue.

And to Kirk's utmost surprise, his guard released him without a word more. Kirk, not quite ready for the release, fell to the ground on his hands and knees.

Almost at once, Spock and Uhura materialized on either side of him and pulled him up by his elbows. He winced and shook them both off. "Spock," he said, listing slightly to one side, "You're not even fit to be standing yourself let alone supporting me. And _you_," he slurred, snapping his attention to Uhura, "You just beat the biggest creature within two star systems of this location in hand to hand combat using only a _Clementine_. I hardly think—"

"Sir," Uhura interrupted, slinging his arm around her shoulder and pulling him forward, "Just shut up."

Kirk, the fuzziness in his head returning now that the immediate danger had passed, did nothing but smile and comply with Uhura's commanding tug. They made their way down the platform, Spock following directly behind. None of the crowd questioned them. They simply backed out of their way, apparently in awe of the little creature who had defeated their leader so suddenly. A few of them stepped forward as they passed slowly by, pawing at Uhura's ponytail or trying to touch her shoulder. Uhura didn't acknowledge any of them.

At long last, they reached the mouth of the cave they had entered into so many hours ago and stepped into the brilliant light of afternoon. Twin suns illuminated the scorched and desolate landscape and the three of them paused to survey the sight.

"Well," Kirk said, shielding his eyes against the glare, "That wasn't so bad."

Uhura made a strangled noise that sounded like an angry cat. She ducked out from beneath Kirk's arm in apparent disgust and he wavered, caught off guard, and backed into Spock directly behind him. The two of them stared at Uhura as she faced them, arms crossed, ponytail askew, and expression seething.

"You two," she said, her voice low and furious, "You two are _never_ leaving the ship again."

…..

Cal looked genuinely excited for the first time. "She was a-_maz_-ing!" she gasped.

Kirk chuckled appreciatively. "Yep, that she is, Cal."

She barely paused to allow Kirk time to speak. "Did she and Spock ever get married?" she asked, eyes round.

"Not yet, but I keep waiting for them to get a move on," Kirk said, still amused by Cal's enthusiasm, "I think _I_ might have to ask her instead of Spock just so he'll get the hint."

Cal giggled. "She would _slap _you."

"Yeah, but it'd be worth it," Kirk said, shrugging.

Cal considered. "Yeah, I guess it would," she said, her head tilted to the side impishly.

Kirk cuffed the back of her head lightly. "Watch it, you, you're getting a bit snarky, there."

She laughed and batted his hand away.

"Jim?" she asked.

Kirk knew what was coming. "Yeah?" he said.

"Can you tell me another story?"

"Sure, sure… Would you like to hear one about Spock?"

"Yes, please," she said emphatically.

"Okay, awesome. Listen up, because this one's _really _good and I don't want to catch you yawning or nodding off or anything."

She shook her head so vigorously that her long, brown pigtails batted her face.

Kirk laughed quietly and began to tell his third tale…

_AN—next bit to come in a few weeks or so—sorry, I'm just trying to juggle a lot of things at the moment. Writing unfortunately gets pushed to the side more often than not. I hope you enjoyed this story though! Please please review! I loves me some criticism!_


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